Save-A-Life, Inc., based out of Savannah, Georgia, is an all-volunteer organization created to save adoptable animals from local shelters and to help prevent overpopulation of companion animals through low cost spaying and neutering.
The Wonderful Animals Giving Support (WAGS) program, created in 1999, is the first of its kind for the Midwest AIDS Prevention Project and provides direct services to people infected with HIV or AIDS. Recognizing the positive impact that pets and companion animals provide their owners, the Midwest AIDS Prevention Project created the WAGS program, designed to keep people with HIV or AIDS and their companion animals together.
The Humane Society of the Ohio Valley works diligently everyday to help animals in their community. Located in Marietta, Ohio, the shelter cares for an average of 1,800 animals per year. The staff and volunteers are successful in getting about half this number of dogs and cats adopted annually. They measure their successes in happy endings and there are plenty at this shelter located close to the Ohio River.
The Concord-Merrimack County SPCA, located in Penacook, New Hampshire, opened in 1910 to relieve suffering and cruelty to animals in their community. These efforts were enhanced by offering humane education programs to show people the importance of being compassionate towards all animals.
When SPCA International launched the Shelter of the Week Program it was our goal to help animal organizations that struggle with funding, but have an over abundance of spirit and determination to make this world a better place for all creatures. When we learned about Help Labus we found an organization that certainly meets these goals.
SPCA International has awarded a $1,000 Emergency Grant to Oswego SPCA located in Oswego, New York. On August 31, the organization’s volunteers were called to a home in nearby Palermo to remove almost 100 animals. The request came from the New York State Police who were investigating the homicide of an 11 year old girl named Erin Maxwell who resided at the home with her parents.
SPCA International is always pleased to recognize organizations that do an exceptional job of tackling the pet overpopulation in their community. SpayED, located in Brookfield, Vermont is tackling the problem head on.
The organization selected for this week’s Shelter of the Week is one that SPCA International is especially pleased to profile and support. Our goal was not only to spotlight organizations that are working incredibly hard to make a difference for animals, but to also show how organizations accomplish this by thinking outside the box.
In 1992, Terri Bauert, a social worker volunteering at a local animal shelter in Greensboro, NC, was dismayed by the number of animals euthanized on a daily basis. Litters of orphaned two-week old puppies and kittens regularly had their brief, fragile lives terminated as the shelter lacked the manpower and facilities to look after these tiny creatures in need of round-the-clock attention. Bauert knew that something had to be done and so she and three friends founded the Animal Rescue and Foster Program (ARFP).
This is the time of the year when people, especially children, make wishes. They ask for a comfy pair of slippers, a shiny bike, the coat they’ve been eyeing in a store window, and on a much grander scale, world peace. If animals were given the opportunity to wish too, what would be at the top of their list? The volunteers at Loving Companions Animal Rescue in North Pole, Alaska, know the answer to this. Life!
